Jim Cohn
James Lewis Cohn (born 1953) is a American poet and spoken word artist. Life Cohn was born in Highland Park, Illinois. Early poetics and musical influences include Bob Dylan, the subject of a now lost audiotaped for a class project completed in his senior year at Shaker Heights High School, where he also co-captained the varsity football team. He received a B.A. from the University of Colorado at Boulder in English (1976) and a Certificate of Poetics (1980) from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University where he was a teaching assistant to Allen Ginsberg. He received his M.S. Ed. in English and Deaf Education from the University of Rochester and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) in 1986. For over 2 decades, he worked in the field of disability services, taking a siddha approach as a model of Disability Services and Studies practice and scholarship. He believed that the social sciences should be redefined thematically within the United States into a form of American karmic studies. Career In 1980, Cohn published his 1st collection of poems, Green Sky. In 1989 Prairie Falcon was published by North Atlantic Books. He would follow up this work with five more books of poetry and two works of poetics nonfiction. He introduced Allen Ginsberg to deaf poets at NTID in 1984. In 1986, he published a groundbreaking essay entitled "The New Deaf Poetics: Visible poetry" in Sign Language Studies (52).The New Deaf Poetics: Visible Poetry In 1987, he coordinated the first National Deaf Poetry Conference, in Rochester, NY. The importance of his role in the history of American Sign Language (ASL) poetics was documented in a 2009 film by Miriam Nathan Lerner entitled The Heart of the Hydrogen Jukebox. In 1990, he began serving as editor to annual poetry magazine, Napalm Health Spa.Online Lit Zines & Anthologies, N In 2009, Napalm Health Spa enjoyed its twentieth year of continuous publication. In 1995, Jim began his recording career with The Abolitionists,The Abolitionists a North Bay Area band that featured Mooka Rennick and guitarist Steve Kimock. He began a solo recording artist career beginning with Unspoken Words in 1998. From 2006-2008, he worked on homage, a spoken word and music recording made upon the death of his mother. In 2009, he released Impermanence, a double CD compilation. In 1996, Cohn began planning for an online poetry project that would explore Beat Generation influences on the Postbeat Poets. In 1997, Jim founded the on-line Museum of American Poetics. In 1999, MAP became the first online poetry site to be mentioned in the New York Times. He published his 1st collection of prose that same year, exploring the theoretical parallels between ASL and modernist poetries in a book entitled Sign Mind: Studies in American Sign Language Poetics.American Sign Language (ASL) poetry In 2003, he produced his 1st film, a 55 minute profile on the life and poetic contributions of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics co-founder Anne Waldman, entitled Anne Waldman: Makeup on Empty Space. In a 2011 review of Cohn's Sutras & Bardos: Essays & Interviews on Allen Ginsberg, the Kerouac School, Anne Waldman, The Postbeat Poets & the New Demotics, Beat Studies scholar Jonah Raskin wrote "Perhaps no one in the United States today understands and appreciates the poetic durability and the cultural elasticity of the Beats better than Jim Cohn."http://www.beatstudies.org/pdfs/sutras.pdf Recognition Cohn's video production, the American Poet Greats series, won the Best Multimedia Award from Community Television in Boulder, Colorado, for 3 years in a row (2001-2003). Publications Poetry * Green Sky. 1980. *''Mangrove: Poems''. Grandville, MI: Nada Press, 1980. *''Divine April''. Grandville, MI: Nada Press, 1984. * Prairie Falcon. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 1989. * Grasslands. Rochester, NY: Writers & Books, 1994. * The Dance of Yellow Lightning Over The Ridge. Rochester, NY: Writers & Books, 1998. * The Golden Body: Meditations on the essence of disability. Boulder, CO: Museum of American Poetics Publications, 2003. * Quien Sabe Mountain. Boulder, CO: Museum of American Poetics Publications, 2004. * The Ongoing Saga I Told My Daughter. Boulder, CO: Museum of American Poetics Publications, 2009. * Mantra Winds: Poems, 2004-2010. Boulder, CO: Museum of American Poetics Publications, 2010. **also published as The Groundless Ground: Poems, 2004-2010. Boulder, CO: Museum of American Poetics Publications, 2010. Non-fiction * Sign Mind: Studies in American Sign Language poetics. Boulder, CO: Museum of American Poetics Publications, 1999. * Sutras & Bardos: Essays & interviews on Allen Ginsberg, the Kerouac School, Anne Waldman, The Postbeat Poets & the New Demotics. Boulder, CO: Museum of American Poetics Publications, 2011. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Jim Cohn, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, June 7, 2014. Audio / video Discography * The Road. MusEx Records, 1995. * Walking Thru Hell Gazing at Flowers. MusEx Records, 1996. * Unspoken Words. MusEx Records, 1998. * Antenna. MusEx Records, 2000. * Emergency Juke Joint. MusEx Records, 2002. * Trashtalking Country. MusEx Records, 2006. * homage. MusEx Records, 2007. * Impermanence. MusEx Records, 2008. See also *List of U.S. poets References External links ;Poems * "Memory Bodies" at echo nyc *Poems by Jim Cohn * "Coyote Steals the 2000 Presidential Election" at Wesley Lake. ;Prose *"Meditation on Leaves of Grass at 150" at Logos Journal ;Audio / video *Jim Cohn at YouTube ;Books *Jim Cohn at Amazon.com ;About *Jim Cohn at farfalla press * Jim Cohn Official website * [http://www.illiteratemagazine.com/featured/21 Interview with Rob Geisen, Illiterate Magazine] * [http://www.beatstudies.org/pdfs/sutras.pdf Review of Sutras & Bardos: Essays & Interviews on Allen Ginsberg, the Kerouac School, Anne Waldman, The Postbeat Poets & the New Demotics by Jonah Raskin] ;Etc. * Museum of American Poetics * The Allen Ginsberg Project Category:Spoken word poets Category:American poets Category:Living people Category:People from Highland Park, Illinois Category:1953 births Category:University of Colorado alumni Category:University of Rochester alumni Category:People from Shaker Heights, Ohio Category:20th-century poets Category:21st-century poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets